Monday, December 3, 2012

Now Ed Schools Are the Problem? Change the Conversation!

In a recent paper,
the AFT's
national leadership advocates for a "bar exam" for educators in
order to improve the quality of teacher candidates by raising standards for
entry into teaching. While there were a number of noteworthy ideas in the
paper, such as more time spent observing masters teachers at work and an emphasis
on educators within the profession setting standards, overall, this paper is
just one more idea borne out of the notion that our teaching force and the
education schools which produce them are, to paraphrase Michelle Rhee, “crap.”.
It feeds directly into the oh-so-common "bad teacher" rhetoric.
The report argues that if we raise GPA requirements, make ed schools more
"rigorous," set higher standards of practice, and force prospective
teachers to pass intense exams in subject matter and pedagogy THEN our schools
will improve. Now, beyond the classist and racist implications of
"improving" our teaching force (read whitening and drawing from
higher income brackets), the very conversation itself is flawed. And I am upset with AFT for entering this
conversation.

Don’t Feed the “Bad Teacher” Monster

This paper comes as retort to EdReformers everywhere who
claim that current teacher preparation programs are creating poor quality
teachers.Just last week we heard
Arne Duncan with Jeb Bush and other corporate-reform-loving friends lament that
“teacher education programs are ‘part of the problem.’” He went on to say “We
need to push very, very hard in schools of education."

This whole conversation assumes, as always, that the major
problem in education is the quality of our teachers. The
assumption is that too many teachers are simply sub-par individuals and
that a more selective process is necessary to weed out these
low-quality people from the "best and the brightest". Although the AFT gives it a different spin, in
many ways this report is the same "bad teacher" mythology peddled by
EdReformers, seen on emotional display in Waiting for Superman,
and put on repeat from every
hedge-fund-manager/billionaire-turned-education-philanthropist
out there. It's
Wendy Kopp's appeal to get "new talent" in our classrooms
regardless of amount of training or experience. It’s Arne Duncan calling teacher prep
programs “broken”.The major problem, to
these people, is always the individual teacher and the ed program
that spawned them. And the only way to improve schools is to recruit better
people from better universities with better rankings
within those schools. And all those who do not meet these criteria must
be fired and punished, because they do not have the innate qualities to be
great. And those that do? Well we should reward them for their amazing greatness.

Let me be clear, it's not that I'm against finding ways to
improve traditional teacher education programs.I just do not believe they are “broken”.They are not why so many teachers quit.They are not why so many low-income schools
struggle. And they certainly have nothing to do with the so-called achievement
gap. The achievement gap exists because of gross inequalities, racism,
and poverty NOT as a result of low-quality teachers or their low-quality prep
programs.

I do see how, as Dana
Goldstein points out , it sounds like Ms. Weingarten and the AFT were
trying to shift some of the focus off the "bad teacher" in the
classroom rhetoric by honing in on increasing standards at the front end of the
process. But--this is all still within the conversation of improving
education through improving teachers themselves. This move affirms the
idea that we need higher entry standards for teacher preparation because our
current batch of teachers is simply not good enough.

And I refuse to participate in that conversation
anymore.

It’s time to change the conversation. Listen to
any EdReformer give a speech. Inevitably, they will slip in the pressing need
to "put a great teacher in every classroom" or some variation.
Think about what that rhetoric means and assumes. Instead of the
bizarre, meritocratic, elitist, "best and brightest" rhetoric
trying to put the magical "best people" in the classroom, let's
change the conversation from talk of great teachERS to great
teachING. A focus on great teachING necessarily opens the
conversation away from individual Super-Teachers and acknowledges that great
teachING requires supportive teaching environments, training, experience, and
can always be improved. Discussing great teachING highlights the
inequities between schools and districts such as class size, resources, support
services, work load, time for collaboration/planning, and all the other factors
that contribute to what a teacher is able to do in her classroom. It also acknowledges the obstacles presented to great teachING from the effects of poverty.

Innately "Great" or Learned Professional
Knowledge?

The mythical "great teachER" is innately and
immediately ready to work miracles in the classroom. Little training and
experience are necessary as long as that person is the "right kind of
person". A quality candidate does not need more than the five weeks
of preparation Teach for America provides. The assumption is that proper
screening in the application process is enough, and the rest can be learned
"on the job". Nevermind that that experimentation is on
someone's precious child. To TFA, that parent should be grateful their
child has exposure to such a quality human being. The great teachER
conversation presupposes that there is no professional body of knowledge to be
learned, pondered, or practiced, just
specific character qualities to be screened for.

Great teachING, on the other hand, is a skill that
must be developed over time and with guidance and care.
TeachING can be improved, it not some static state of being. And in
this context, preparation, training, and experience matter
dramatically. By the way, great teachING can never be
demonstrated through a rigorous exam, but rather must be observed and nurtured
on an individual mentor/mentee basis. A strong basis in theory and extensive
student teaching experiences are necessary for great teachING, because like any
professional skill, it must be practiced and honed under the watchful eye of an
expert.

Notice that within the conversation of great
teachING, it makes sense why our successful affluent suburban schools hire
teachers with Master's Degrees and Doctorates. They don't fill their
schools with fresh, elite superstars with little formal training.
Affluent schools acknowledge it is preparation, experience, and teaching
contexts that lead to the great teachING found in these
institutions. In addition, the teachers in affluent schools come
from the same schools of education as the "failing" school in the
nearby inner-city, and yet somehow those teachers succeed. If
schools of education were truly “broken”, as our own Secretary of Education
contends, then schools would fail everywhere.There is simply no evidence that our Ed Schools are doing a poor
job.

Greatness Depends

When the focus rests on the great teachER, teaching contexts
truly do not matter. A superstar teachER, can overcome any
obstacle. "Poverty is not destiny" and anyone who claims
otherwise is "making excuses". The great teachER--through their high
expectations and belief that all children can learn--can work miraculous transformation.
Throw in a little "grit" and "perseverance", those
important innate qualities of greatness, and the achievement gap will magically
disappear.

But great teachING requires teaching contexts conducive
to greatness. In this new conversation, we are suddenly free to
talk about inequalities in the system. These are not excuses, but
realities. We can acknowledge that a teacher can perform phenomenal
teachING in one context and horrible teachING in another. When classes
are too large, with too many high-needs students, and few support staff or
resources, we can speak the truth that the quality of the
teachING will likely decrease. To improve teachING means to take on
building equitable, fully-resourced classrooms for every teacher and learner. It
means creating appropriate workloads and time for collaboration/planning.
And no amount of firing and hiring of individual teachers
in an unequal system will ever change that context.

Also in the conversation of great teachING, there is room
for all kinds of teachers: people who are inspirational, brainy, athletic, artistic,
from the local neighborhood or another country, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, people who possess all types of multiple
intelligences. We can be glad of this diversity, for the students we
teach are just as diverse and need all kinds of people in their lives to
inspire them to greatness. This conversation also allows for the occasional
normal human "bad day" without it being the end of a career.
Great teachING is not tied to a test score or a snapshot, but rather is a
holistic picture of what happens in that classroom daily. And it can
always be improved.

-----

I urge Randi Weingarten and the AFT national leadership to
stop participating in the "bad teacher" conversation. I
understand wanting address the many claims by EdReformers that teacher prep
is broken.But why not highlight our best
examples? Why not remind people that it’s not traditional programs producing
the vast majority of unprepared teachers? Why not point the spotlight back onto
the real problems in preparation like the growing number of fast-track
alternative programs and how some traditional programs have watered down their
own programs to compete?

Or better yet, why engage in the “bad teachER” conversation
at all?End the witch hunts.Focus the conversation on how to improve
teachING. It is a much fuller, more inclusive, and more helpful
conversation to have.

So glad I followed the EdWeekly post to here from your comment. :) I'm now wondering what kind of support teachers in better schools get... And what supports I have and take for granted that might not exist in even more challenging schools...

While I agree with a lot of what you're saying about providing supports for high-needs schools that will enable poor kids to learn better, it seems like you didn't read the AFT report. It is actually calling for many of the very same things you talk about here, such as "preparation, training, and experience." It's true that "great teachING can never be demonstrated through a rigorous exam, but rather must be observed and nurtured on an individual mentor/mentee basis" - and that's exactly what AFT is proposing - not just an exam but clinical practice with a master mentor, who has also been trained, and who is compensated for this extra responsibility. Its focus is on teachING preparation, not just better candidates. Its main objective is collaboration among all stakeholders to improve teacher preparation.

I might agree with your claim that there's nothing wrong with ed schools if I hadn't spoken to so many teachers who say their training, both in alternative and traditional programs, was mediocre at best.

About Me

I'm a special education teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. I've taught kids with severe emotional/behavioral disorders on an inpatient psych unit in Chicago and ESL in Japan. I love my kiddos (^-^)/